Bond 26’s delay spur other efforts

The James Bond film franchise is in the midst of another hiatus. It’s not known when the franchise will get going again. How is this affecting the spy genre?

Literary Bond gets a chance to shine: In 2022, Ian Fleming Publication came out with Double Or Nothing by Kim Sherwood, a modern-day tale featuring other 00-agents while James Bond is missing. The novel is just now coming to the U.S.

Also, Charlie Higson, who penned a series of “Young Bond’ novels is getting his chance to do an adult Bond novel with On His Majesty’s Secret Service, a story related to the coronation of King Charles III. That will be published in all forms in the U.K early next month. In the U.S., we’ll get an e-book version and an audiobook at the same time. A print version may be out shortly.

Other spies get a chance to shine: Amazon is coming out with a streaming series called Citadel featuring operatives of an independent spy agency. A movie titled Maude vs. Maude with Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry is in development, according to Deadline: Hollywood.

Jolie previously headlined the 2010 spy movie titled Salt. Berry had the lead female role in Die Another Day, the 2002 James Bond film. Richard Madden is one of the leads for Citadel. He has been part of speculation for playing 007 in Bond 26.

There are other spy-related projects, including Argylle (whose cast includes another would-be Bond, Henry Cavill).

Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible series gets a free run: Tom Cruise is coming out with a Mission: Impossible film(later this year, with a follow-up in 2024. This may be the finale for Cruise’s M:I movie series that began in 1996.

Bond fans note (with justification) that M:I stunts appear to be modeled after earlier stunt efforts in 007 films. But what makes the M:I series different is how Cruise seems all-in on the stunts.

We’ll see about all this. But nature abhors a vacuum. If the makers of the Bond franchise want a break, others clearly will take up the slack.

UPDATED: Reader Jack Lugo reminded me about this upcoming project, Ghosted, with Chris Evans and Ana De Armas. The latter was a memorable part of No Time to Die.

The 355 flops as spy movies struggle to find an audience

The 355 movie poster

The 355, a spy movie with a mostly female cast, flopped over the weekend in its U.S. debut.

The film’s opening U.S. weekend totaled an estimated $4.8 million, according to Exhibitor Relations Co., which tracks box office data. It was the first film of 2022 with a “wide” opening (3,000 screens or more).

The 355 shows it’s hard for spy movies not part of the James Bond or Mission: Impossible films series to get much traction.

At one time (the early 2000s), Jason Bourne was a big success, even prodding Eon Productions to change the tone of its 007 productions and dump Pierce Brosnan in favor of Daniel Craig as Bond. In the mid- to late-2010s, director Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman series, mixing violence and comedy, appeared to be something new.

However, Bourne’s success has been difficult to extend without Matt Damon. In 2016, there was another Bourne entry with Matt Damon (simply titled Jason Bourne). But nothing has happened since then. 2017 saw Atomic Blonde with a global box office of $100 million. However, no sequel resulted. And Matthew Vaughn’s most recent Kingsmen effort, The King’s Man, flopped.

Other spy film attempts have been a mixed bag.

Salt (2010) had a respectable $293.5 million at the global box office but never generated a sequel. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015), (loosely) based on the 1964-68 TV show, had a global box office of $107 million. Hopes for a revived U.N.C.L.E. disappeared.

The Rhythm Section (2020), made by Eon Productions, had a worldwide box office of not quite $6 million. Clearly, the makers of the Bond films weren’t able to duplicate the success of the 007 movies.

We’ll see. Matthew Vaughn has another spy project titled Argylle which will star Henry Cavill (who played Solo in the 2015 U.N.C.L.E. movie).

Hope springs eternal when it comes to spy films.

Bond 26 questions: The ‘next iteration’ edition

Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

No Time to Die still isn’t out but there has been some news related to Bond 26. Naturally, the blog has questions.

What do you make of recent Broccoli-Wilson comments?

In a July 6 story in The New York Times, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson of Eon Productions spoke up in support of two current Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film executives.

“Mike and Pam understand that we are at a critical juncture and that the continuing success of the James Bond series is dependent on us getting the next iteration right and will give us the support we need to do this,” the Eon duo said in a statement of Michael De Luca, chairman of MGM’s Motion PIcture Group, and his deputy, Pamela Abdy. (emphasis added)

Until late September 2020, Broccoli wouldn’t publicly acknowledge that No Time to Die would be Daniel Craig’s final James Bond movie. ““It is the fifth and final one that Daniel Craig is going to be doing,” Broccoli said on an episode of the official No Time to Die podcast that would soon go into hiatus because the movie got delayed.

Evidently, Eon likes how De Luca and Abdy are managing MGM’s film unit. But their future is uncertain with Amazon’s pending $8.45 billion acquisition of James Bond’s home studio.

Eon controls creative matters related to the cinema Bond. The Broccoli-Wilson statement looks like a strong suggestion to Amazon to not shake up MGM’s film operation when the Bond franchise is on the verge of another transition and yet another new film Bond.

Did the list of possible new film Bond actors just go down by one?

Over the past few years, entertainment outlets and websites have speculated about who might take over Craig’s shoulder holster. One name that comes up a lot is British actor Henry Cavill.

However, this week, it came out that Cavill will be in a new Matthew Vaughn-directed spy film, Argylle.

Once upon a time, when Cavill was in his early 20s, he tested for Bond. He came in behind Craig.

Since then, Cavill’s ability to anchor film franchises has been a so-so affair. He was in one solo Superman movie and appeared as the Man of Steel in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. But his future as Superman looks dicey. Cavill starred in 2015’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but that movie didn’t resonate with audiences and no additional U.N.C.L.E. films followed.

Cavill was a supporting player in a Mission: Impossible movie and has starred in a popular streaming show, The Witcher.

The actor is now 38, the same age Craig was when he was cast as Bond. But Cavill’s chances of being cast as Bond may be running out — assuming he ever had a chance in the first place. Would Eon want to cast a Bond actor who has been in two different spy movies? I wouldn’t go banco on that.

Matthew Vaughn heads to the spy well — again

Teaser poster for Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Director Matthew Vaughn has had spies on his mind since at least 2004. And he’s going to that well once more with a new project titled Argylle.

Here’s an excerpt from The Hollywood Reporter about Vaughn’s newest project:

Based on the soon to be launched spy novel Argylle, from author Ellie Conway, the film — being produced by Vaughn’s Marv banner — follows the world’s greatest spy Argylle as he is caught up in a globe-trotting adventure. It’s expected to be the first of at least three films in the franchise and is set in America, London and multiple locations across the world.

The large cast is to include Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, Dallas Bryce Howard, Bryan Cranston, Samuel L. Jackson and others.

Vaughn’s interest in spy entertainment goes back more than 15 years. In 2004, Vaughn was reported to be in talks to direct a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. That didn’t happen and an U.N.C.L.E. movie didn’t come out until 2015, with Henry Cavill in the cast.

Vaughn, in the meantime, directed 2011’s X-Men: First Class, which included Michael Fassbender engaging in some James Bond-style tropes as the future Magneto.

But the director’s big spy genre activity has been the Kingsman series — Kingsman: The Secret Service, Kingsman: The Golden Circle and a prequel, The King’s Man. The latter has been on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cast members of Kingsman: The Secret Service said in 2014 the movie had elements of early Bond films, U.N.C.L.E. and The Avengers.

Concerning Vaughn’s new project, The Hollywood Reporter quotes Vaughn as saying, “This is going to reinvent the spy genre.”

That’s quite a boast, particularly the rummaging around Vaughn already has done in the spy genre. We’ll see.